I recently walked through the house with my iPhone, taking photos of "before" situations. It may be a while before I can take the "after" shots, though. My first project became one for my daughter for her new home.
She sent me a link for a damask and houndstooth valance which was much too small for her window and wanted to know if I could copy it. We shopped for fabric and ended up buying exactly what she wanted.

My first task was to determine how the take advantage of the print.  I laid out the piping to determine a pleasing shape and then used paper to copy the outline.   After copying the outline to the lining and sewing the piping on, it was time to decide how to use the houndstooth fabric.  After much deliberation and seemingly hours of walking around and around the fabric, the same outline was used to keep it uniform.

After stapling the fabrics to a 1x4 board, the valance was complete.

I'm sorry that the photo is so dark, but all I had on hand was my phone. 

 

 

Here's the before

 

and after: